Aye. Its not being said crystal clear, thats why i didnt noticed it.
Anyway, its just like you said. Wartime actions can be legal and immoral at the same time after all. But im in better terms with morality than law
so i cant just accept such things as symptomatic. For example, i put less weight to Otto Weddigen's attack (although not justifying it) because these three ships were the first sinkings of his career, if im not mistaken, he hadnt seen any live battle thus being inexperienced and maybe even eager for his first sinkings (i just speculate. wasnt in his head to know what he was thinking). On the other hand though, you have Robert C. Richardson, who at the time was almost 60 years old, had served already in WW1 and had seen the horrors of it before. Taking into account that he was already informed about the situation leads me to the conclusion that he valued more one submarine than some hundrends of human lives, enemy or not.
All the above are my personal point of view based on morality.
Under a law-based point of view, you already said it all.
Cheers.
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